"Guys guys!" Chuck called out, toeing the edge of the maze's labyrinth. His greetings muted as we made it inside. He hugged me tight as soon as he was able.

"What's wrong Chuck?" I asked, holding him by his shoulders. His head stayed bowed down, even his ringlets had fell flat.

"Gally found out you guys left." Oh shit. "He called a meeting of the keepers. Everyone's at the homestead." I already felt the heavy weight dropped on my back. I would have to face Gally. He was really acting bitchy lately. I wonder if it was his time of the month or something.

"Is he mad at me?" My eyes fell wide, staring into space. I really didn't wanna see the look on his face.

"Don't worry about it y/n okay. It's gonna be okay." Thomas's hand rubbed my shoulder, the group could all sense my nervous energy, soaking in it.

"Okay." We'll see.

______________________

We burst through the homestead's door, shuffling in one by one. Newt stayed on the couch. Gally in the other hand stood up, rearing for a fight. With who, he didn't seem to care. Jaw locked matching crossed arms.

"Nice of you to join us." Peeking around, I could see his eyes searching for me. Unfortunately for him I was covered up by Frypan my savior. "You guys enjoy your little field trip?"

"What the hell Gally." Minho seethed, little metal thing in hand. "You think you can just call a keeper meeting without us?"

"Where's my girlfriend?" Gally was staring daggers into the entire search party.

"What?" Minho really didn't know how to play dumb. Note to self, never have Minho lie for you.

"Where's my girlfriend?" Gally repeated. "You stupid or something? Y/n? I know they left with you dumb shanks. I looked through the whole glade for them." Fuck. I'm gonna have to do it eventually. Screwing my eyes shut, I stepped aside Frypan and revealed myself.

"Hi...Gal?"

"Y/n." He marched on over, tugging me towards him."Where have you been?!" His face was seeping to a murky red. His hold on my shoulders tightened.

"Gally..."

"No, where were you?!"

You're mom's house. No. No. Bad y/n. Don't be a dick. Shut the fuck up internal monologue!

"Hey, leave her alone." Thomas the hero, pulled me back by my forearm. Gally reddened an even darker shade at the contact. "She was with us the whole time. Nothing bad happened to her. She's safe-" Gally ripped me back onto him, snaking an arm around my waist. This tug o war thing was getting pretty old.

"Hey you don't get to touch her. Not now, not ever." Gally growled, stabbing a finger at Thomas. "The hell are you doing here anyway, last time I checked the Greenie wasn't a keeper. Mind waiting outside?!"

"I'm not a keeper either." I blurted.

"He stays!" Minho ordered, Gally's brows raised. "They both do." Gally, still stunned, couldn't say a thing. "What's the point of all this?"

"We've got two hours till sundown." Newt sighed, kicking at the carpet slightly. "We gotta figure out what to do with Alby."

Oh. Alby. Right.

Alby had always been so grumpy and unfair and rude but he was Alby. He was our leader. At the end of the day he was one of us. Always. But they had killed Ben. Forced him into the maze while hearing his heart splitting pleas. What's to say they won't do the same to Alby?

"You wanna banish him." Winston said from the back.

"No. No one wants to banish anyone, alright." Gally rubbed my shoulder. His hands never leaving the place he grabbed me. Softly he said. "But he's stung. We don't have a choice."

Was Gally really going to banish Alby? After how upset Ben's death had me. I never even finished grieving him. His loss. The empty hole found in the glade from his disappearance.

"Yes we do." Thomas protested.

"You say something Newbie?" Gally swung toward him, his knuckles slowly curling. Quickly, I slipped my hand through. Stopping the halfway formed fist.

"Yeah we have a choice, we don't have to banish Alby." Thomas took hold of the metal thingy we found in the griever, passing it over to Newt. "Here we found this, on our field trip." The blonde boy fiddled with it, turning it around and flipping around the veiny wires. "It was inside a griever." Newts eyes flashed in recognition.

"These are the same letters we get in our supplies." He had seen them. Just as we had.

W.C.K.D

"Yeah, whoever put us here obviously made the grievers. Now this is the first real clue, the first anything you've found over three years, right Minho?" Thomas really knew how to make a case. Maybe if we got out of here he could be a lawyer or some boring shit like that.

"Right."

"Newt we got to get back out there.Who knows where this might lead us."

Wow.

Maybe we really could get out of here. Maybe I could live out my thousand different dreams. Maybe we could be free. Maybe Thomas was the god send. What if he was the key to that...to freedom?

Gally took his hand away from mine.

"You see what he's trying to do here right?" With a straight palm he cut his way into the conversation. His hands talking more than he did. "First he breaks our rules and then he tries to convince us to abandon them totally wha-" Gally huffed. "The rules are the only thing that have ever held us together, why now are we questioning that?" Thomas bit his lips, his eyes faltering over to Newt. "If Alby was here you know he'd agree with me. This shank, needs to be punished."

Punished?!

"Is that really what we're going to focus on?" I spoke up, stepping away from Gally. "Punishment? Whose fault it was? Who did what? We should be trying to fix all of this together." Gally inhaled deeply to calm himself.

"Y/n just please shucking sit on the couch and let me deal with this."

"No!" Whipping my self toward Newt I declared. "If Thomas is going to be punished then punish me too."

Stillness.

Newt gave the griever metal thing back to Minho, finally breaking his silence.

"You're right." Newt nodded. "Thomas broke the rules and y/n has a pretty big list to serve if we're counting everything they've done."

"No." Gally protested. "Well that's different."

"Why, because she's you're girlfriend?" Newt said bluntly. That seemed to shut Gally up, suddenly understanding that I needed to face the same rules for Thomas to be punished. "One night in the pit, no food."

"One night! But he-" Gally spluttered, rambling for words. "Do you think that's going to stop him from going back into the maze?!"

"No. And we can't just have non runners running into the maze whenever they feel like it." Newt glared at Thomas and I sternly. "So let's just make this official. Starting from tomorrow you're a runner." Thomas couldn't help the small grin he tried so hard to hide that framed his face.

"Wow." Gally sighed, turning towards the homesteads door. Oh shit.

"Gally." Frypan reached out for him.

"Nah Fry." Gally only brushed him off, slamming the door behind him. Pushing past the others, I went after the angry boy.

"Gally wait up!" I called out, my legs having to make double time to keep up with him. His back stayed turned towards me as he maintained his quick strides. The muscle in his broad shoulders tender up. "Gally!" No response. We were in the deadheads now, the small clearing I recognized as the one we made out in. He flipped around, still fuming. "Gal?"

"Why is everything so God damn frustrating?!" He erupted like a fiery volcano, cheeks a flaming red. Answers or words of comfort only seemed to slip from my mind. I just wish I could say something, anything!

"I-" He interrupted, seizing my face, locking his lips onto mine. Gally's fingers pressed into my skin, creeping back to my hair as he continued.

This time each kiss made me wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him down to meet me. His temper leeched onto me, my skin feeling dizzy and hot. Biting his lip and pressing our faces close together as we heavily made out. His hands were all over, sinking into my hair, electrifying the nape of my neck, down to my back making their way around my waist.

We must've moved because I just remember being shoved against a tree. The rough bark poking at my flesh as I was nudged to the ground. Gally sat down next to me, pulling away. How to describe how it felt. To put it quite plainly, he made me want to rip his shirt off.

"You make me sick." He grumbled, rubbing his lips. "But in a good way. Like sick with a really good feeling." As my pulse calmed to its regular pace I found the words, everything I wanted to say.

Propping myself up, I lay my lips softly on his cheek. Ghosting my fingers across the fabric of his shirt, I let myself be as comforting as possible. Blanketing my self around him.

"I love you Gally." My whispers tickled his ear. "I really do."

"Why can't you ever take my side then?" He practically pouted.

"Maybe it's so you'll kiss me more." I pressed a few more on his mouth, it made him smile at least. "No, it's because I love you. Part of loving somebody is not letting them spiral into something not so good. I can see you getting mad more now that Thomas is here and the whole Alby and Ben thing."

"I don't like that Thomas kid."

"I know but being friends with him would be so much easier, wouldn't it."

"Yeah yeah, whatever y/n." Gally kissed my forehead. "At least we have each other, right?"

"Right."